1972 McLaren-Cosworth M21

Offered by RM Sotheby’s | Monaco | May 2024

Photo Courtesy of RM Sotheby’s

The M21 was a Formula Two race car built by McLaren for the 1972 season. Jody Scheckter, who owns this car, won a single race in the M21 in London, but the car largely struggled with technical issues.

The original M21 was wrecked in the 1970s. There were two Formula Atlantic versions of the car in existence, so a couple of guys realized they had enough parts to build three M21 cars in the 1990s. One of which used a spare monocoque and the other two used existing cars, one of which was privately owned and one that was owned by McLaren.

None of them had chassis plates, but McLaren offered up some new ones that identified the cars as M21s. This is one of the three and it was sort of built for Scheckter in the ’90s. It has a Cosworth inline-four and an estimate of $140,000-$215,000. More info can be found here.

1973 McLaren-Cosworth M23

Offered by RM Sotheby’s | Monaco | May 2024

Turns out former F1 champion Jody Scheckter has quite the collection of old F1 cars, including this, his McLaren M23. The M23 was a helluva car, appearing on the grid in races beginning in 1973 and ending in 1978. Could you imagine someone running a five-year-old F1 chassis in a race today?

This car is chassis M23-2, and it is powered by a Cosworth V8. In period, the 3.0-liter DFV made about 465 horsepower. The competition history for this chassis includes:

1973 Spanish Grand Prix – 4th (with Peter Revson)
1973 Belgian Grand Prix – 16th, DNF (with Revson)
1973 Monaco Grand Prix – 5th (with Revson)
1973 Swedish Grand Prix – 7th (with Revson)
1973 British Grand Prix – 1st (with Revson)
1973 Dutch Grand Prix – 4th (with Revson)
1973 German Grand Prix – 9th (with Revson)
1973 Austrian Grand Prix – 22nd, DNF (with Revson)
1973 Canadian Grand Prix – 22nd, DNF (with Jody Scheckter)
1973 United States Grand Prix – 18th, DNF (with Scheckter)
1974 South African Grand Prix – 19th (with Dave Charlton)
1975 South African Grand Prix – 14th (with Charlton)

It also competed in F5000 and Can-Am races through 1980! It remained part of McLaren’s collection before being traded into Scheckter’s. It now has an estimate of $1,860,000-$2,400,000. More info can be found here.